The Hamburgler was captured today outside a McDonald's in Willits, California (and I'm pretty sure I saw the Grimace in the driver's side of the stopped get-away car). ... Okay, not really, but it seemed that way. ☺ As we were driving through Willits, we saw flashing police car lights in the distance. Upon approach, we came upon the scene of 3 police cars surrounding one car just outside the parking lot of the local McDonald's (not long afterward, a fourth police car zoomed past, headed in that direction). My opening statement is what I said to everyone in our car. I figured such a show of force had to be for such an auspicious capture!
Today was a major travel day from Visalia to Eureka. Google maps estimated the travel time for the trip to be over 8 hours; with several extra stops along the way and a bit of traffic here and there, it was longer—probably closer to 10. During the planning stages of the trip, I decided to stop in Eureka instead of traveling all the way up to Crescent City because the extra travel to Crescent City would have made the trip over 10 hours long (12 in "real time"). Seeing that number made me groan because it reminded me too much of the first 4 days of our vacation back East two years ago. Yes, we made it to New Jersey in 4 days, but those 4 day wore me out. We would pull into each KOA well after the office had closed (thankfully, because our reservations, a map with directions to our tent site was always posted). After two days, we learned to set up our tent in the dark really well. My hope was to be able to reach the Eureka KOA before the setting of the sun to have a little time to unwind and cook dinner.
Yes, I did write cook dinner in the above sentence. ☺ To cut down on food costs, we also decided in our planning to cook our dinner at some of the KOAs instead of going out to eat. The idea had been to buy a camp stove and some propane bottles and cook our food at the tent site without having to worry about starting a fire. Interestingly, each time I went either to our local Wal-Mart or to the Bass Pro Shop near work, I would always come up with an excuse not to buy the stove. Maybe this "stupor of thought" was the Spirit warning me of the space problem I was soon to encounter (or maybe I'm just too cheap to make the purchase ☺), but buying the stove would have made my trunk space headache unbearable! Actually, while I was loading the trunk this morning as we broke camp in Visalia, I figured out the problem. We used two duffel bags for our clothing two years ago, but one of the bags has been ruined beyond repair since then and we are now using the one duffel bag and a regular suitcase for this trip. The suitcase is causing the space problem.
Since I hadn't purchased the camp stove, the day before we left I did some internet tracking and found another Bass Pro Shop in Manteca (right along our route) and made plans to purchase the stove there. Because of the space problems in the car trunk, buying a camp stove wasn't going to happen, but we went there anyway to purchase a new air mattress instead. The mattress Jennifer and I used last night had sprung a leak somewhere. I had to refill it with air 3 times during the night and we still ended up on the ground by morning. In keeping with our throw away society, I wasn't interested in attempting to fix the mattress when I could buy a new one. Also, I didn't really have the time today and I had no desire to end up sleeping on the ground again. With no space in the trunk for an extra, leaking air mattress, it had to be left behind.
Mission accomplished at the Pro Shop, we also made a stop at the local Wal-Mart to get a new sim-card for the video camera (that was an interesting exercise in patience as no one seemed to know where the key was to unlock the sim-card I wanted). On the road again (to quote Willie Nelson), we followed the 580 freeway through Livermore and eventually Oakland; past Emeryville (we waved in the general direction of Pixar Studios) and Berkeley and then across the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge (the only remaining bay bridge we had not as yet crossed). From there, we transitioned onto Redwood Highway (the 101) and continued north until we finally reached Eureka. We made it to the local Costco just in time to fill up the car (9 minutes to spare). On a now full tank of gas, we easily made the last few miles to the KOA.
As the sun started to set, we put up the tent and then turned our attention to dinner arrangements. Without the cooking stove, we needed to improvise. While the boys explored the camp and looked for the bathroom, I set out of employ my limited Boy Scout skills (I'm a Tenderfoot who was bumped up to a Star or Life rank—it's a long story ☺) and start a fire sufficient for cooking hot dogs. My first two efforts were unsuccessful and Jennifer wanted to ask the people at the tent site next to us if they could help me, but my pride and stubbornness wouldn't allow me to let her ask. After thinking the process through a couple of times, I kind of made a tee-pee and kind of got a fire going after about 25 minutes of frustration. Problem was, every time I got flames going and attempted to add more fuel to the fire, the flames would go out. Luckily, the embers were hot enough for me to blow on and rekindle the flame (I think I did this about 4 times in the early stages of the fire). Finally, after about 45 minutes, we finally had a decent enough fire crackling to roast hot dogs (by then I think we were ready to eat them uncooked if we had to). We ate, read our scriptures and went to bed.
Since I hadn't purchased the camp stove, the day before we left I did some internet tracking and found another Bass Pro Shop in Manteca (right along our route) and made plans to purchase the stove there. Because of the space problems in the car trunk, buying a camp stove wasn't going to happen, but we went there anyway to purchase a new air mattress instead. The mattress Jennifer and I used last night had sprung a leak somewhere. I had to refill it with air 3 times during the night and we still ended up on the ground by morning. In keeping with our throw away society, I wasn't interested in attempting to fix the mattress when I could buy a new one. Also, I didn't really have the time today and I had no desire to end up sleeping on the ground again. With no space in the trunk for an extra, leaking air mattress, it had to be left behind.
Mission accomplished at the Pro Shop, we also made a stop at the local Wal-Mart to get a new sim-card for the video camera (that was an interesting exercise in patience as no one seemed to know where the key was to unlock the sim-card I wanted). On the road again (to quote Willie Nelson), we followed the 580 freeway through Livermore and eventually Oakland; past Emeryville (we waved in the general direction of Pixar Studios) and Berkeley and then across the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge (the only remaining bay bridge we had not as yet crossed). From there, we transitioned onto Redwood Highway (the 101) and continued north until we finally reached Eureka. We made it to the local Costco just in time to fill up the car (9 minutes to spare). On a now full tank of gas, we easily made the last few miles to the KOA.
As the sun started to set, we put up the tent and then turned our attention to dinner arrangements. Without the cooking stove, we needed to improvise. While the boys explored the camp and looked for the bathroom, I set out of employ my limited Boy Scout skills (I'm a Tenderfoot who was bumped up to a Star or Life rank—it's a long story ☺) and start a fire sufficient for cooking hot dogs. My first two efforts were unsuccessful and Jennifer wanted to ask the people at the tent site next to us if they could help me, but my pride and stubbornness wouldn't allow me to let her ask. After thinking the process through a couple of times, I kind of made a tee-pee and kind of got a fire going after about 25 minutes of frustration. Problem was, every time I got flames going and attempted to add more fuel to the fire, the flames would go out. Luckily, the embers were hot enough for me to blow on and rekindle the flame (I think I did this about 4 times in the early stages of the fire). Finally, after about 45 minutes, we finally had a decent enough fire crackling to roast hot dogs (by then I think we were ready to eat them uncooked if we had to). We ate, read our scriptures and went to bed.
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